1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data processing, and in particular to a computer implemented method and apparatus for caching data. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer program product for creating and linking constrained cookies and a set of data.
2. Description of the Related Art
Reliance on data processing systems has grown exponentially in recent years because of the increased use of computing devices in every aspect of business and society. In many cases, users access information and data using a network or over the Internet. In order to maximize productivity, users need to be able to quickly and easily access information through a web application.
In many cases, user requests and responses are sent through various servers. For example, a Web application server may be used to run a Web application. A Web server may be used to process static data and transfer business logic requests to the application server. An edge server is an intermediate processing server that may provide a caching functionality based on request parameters and cookies related to the request. Industry practice is to place the edge server geographically closer to the end user, to decrease response latency, and prevent excessive data traffic toward the web application server site. The edge server may cache data in close proximity to the client, improving the overall performance of the web application site.
By definition, an edge server has no computational capability and implements very rudimentary caching rules. The position of the edge server limits the edge server's caching abilities to be defined only on a set of cookies arriving with the client request. As a result of these limitations, the edge server has no capacity to provide computational power and logic in the caching decisions, initiate cookie management for a request, or provide secure data management for a request cookie.
Because of these limitations, the edge server is incapable of resolving requests for sensitive information in a secure way. For example, the edge server is incapable of preventing a replay attack, wherein a hostile user intercepts a valid request and replays the request later to obtain the same output as the original valid call. The inability to manage and process the incoming requests prevents any form of identity verification to be performed by the edge server. As a result, cached information stored on the edge server is limited to privacy insensitive information. As a result, the performance improvements available by caching information on the edge server are limited by security considerations.